The black thing moved.
Rosalie Ashford jerked backward so sharply that the oil lamp nearly slipped from her hand.
Across the table, Gideon Rook watched her face instead of the porcelain bowl.
He could not hear the faint scratching beneath the lamplight, but he understood terror well enough.
His right ear was bleeding.
A thin crimson line ran down his neck and disappeared beneath the collar of his sweat-soaked shirt.
Rosalie forced herself to look again.
The object she had pulled from his swollen ear was nearly an inch long, dark with blood and wax, segmented like an insect larva.
It twisted once, struck the side of the bowl, and curled upon itself.
“Dear God.”
Gideon saw her lips move.
His hand immediately reached for the notebook.
What is it?
Rosalie swallowed.
She had grown up around animals.
She had cleaned infected wounds, helped her mother deliver calves, and once
